Last Updated on 7th February 2019 by Caroline Haye
I’m intrigued to have just read something about nutrition and vitiligo that I don’t remember ever having seen before (just as I was beginning to think I’d read and memorised everything!)
It’s in an article by Dr Sandy Milgraum, Associate Professor of Dermatology, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, East Brunswick, New Jersey (Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com).
He says: “…The body especially needs two proteins, Phenylalanine and Glutamine to manufacture melanin, the pigment in your skin…” I already knew about phenylanaline (and am taking this in Boost – well actually it’s l-tyrosine, which is what phenylanaline converts into) but I haven’t been taking a glutamine supplement.
I still have about 2% of the way to go in the entire re-pigmentation process, so I’ll see if adding l-glutamine to the mix will speed it along. I’ll keep you posted!
18 thoughts on “L-Glutamine”
Great to hear your news, Mayo. It all helps build up a picture to hear that other people are getting success with these various nutrients. Good luck with your continued re-pigmentation 🙂
HI Caroline, Thanks a lot for your information! I have vitiligo also, and just have been diagnosed with leaky gut. Do you have a connection with Xenca? because all of the supplements you use are from Xenca…
Hi Candice,
Sorry for the slight delay in replying – I only just spotted your comment!
That’s interesting that you have both leaky gut and vitiligo. I think there is a fair chance that the one may have contributed to – or even caused – the other. So, hopefully L-glutamine will help with both.
To answer your questions about my connection to Xenca – yes there is one. I do mention this on my site but the story of how this came about is slightly long-winded and not very relevant so I don’t go into all the detail. But, just for you, here’s the whole story!
Essentially, I have worked with beauty and image for many years and have switched from one brand of professional cosmetics to another during the course of my career. About 4 years ago, I made another switch to a company called Proto-col so that I could use their skin care and mineral makeup with my clients. When I got my trade account I realised they also sold a range of nutritional supplements and started using their collagen (which did wonders for making my skin look younger and strengthening my hair and nails) and their green superfoods (for general health) and also decided to give Boost and Bronze a try. I was intrigued to see if Boost (a product designed to maximise a normal suntan) would have any effect on vitiligo (I didn’t for a minute really think it would – I had become well accustomed over the decades to nothing ever having the least efffect!) And I thought it was worth experimenting with Bronze to see if it only made the contrast between the white patches and the normal skin worse or whether it might help camouflage them a bit (which, in my case luckily, it did – although I don’t think it would for darker skins).
I didn’t honestly expect any positive results from any of this as regards my vitiligo. It was just an experiment. However, I immediately saw improvements in my general health using the collagen and green superfoods and I just kept taking the Boost and Bronze on the off-chance. It was springtime and I understood that Boost is designed to work with sun exposure, so I sat out as much as I could and roughly 6 to 8 weeks later the freckles started to appear… I was gobsmacked! You know the rest of the story of my re-pigmentation from my website.
After about 3 years of using Proto-col products with my beauty clients and taking the supplements for myself, the company went through a change of management and restructuring, price increases, etc, and so I left them and started to buy direct from the manufacturer who made the Boost and Bronze supplements for Proto-col. I now use and sell the same nutritional supplements and an improved green superfood, plus a new skin care and makeup range through a new company called Xenca.
I have always been told there is not much you can do for vitiliago. Could you please e-mail me what you have been doing and how successful have you been in clearing up your vitilitago.
Thanks for any advise you can offer
Hi Pam,
I can’t find any evidence of having replied to your request – I do apologise if that’s the case. The full story of how I have been re-pigmenting after 50 years of vitiligo is on my website vitiligoprotocol.co.uk but I will happily email you with any additional info if you still have questions. Just let me know 🙂
I saw dr. Milgraun a month ago .my face was 90 percent white and he started me on a treatment with lgutamine lphenilaline a multivitamin all of the solar brand and also a formula he prepares of pepper oil and using protopics and doping on the sun moderately .it is wrking and my pigment is returning on the face
Mayo,
I know it has been a while since you started using L-Phenylanaline and L-Glutamine supplements. Has it helped with your Vitligo since 2012?
I would appreciate if you could inform me whether I could take glutamine 1000mg and phenylalanine 500 mg together . Kind regards Vesna
So sorry I missed your question, Vesna. I am supposed to receive a notification everytime someone posts a comment on my blog but it doesn’t always work! Hopefully this reply is better late than never 🙂 I am not a qualified nutritionist but have checked both doses you quote here and they are both within safe limits (in fact 1000mg of glutamine would be considered quite low.) You could take 5 or even 10 times that amount. Do check with your doctor though if you have any doubts. There may be some medical conditions that would be contraindicated.
Its amazing, looking at the time and effort you put into your blog and detailed information you provide. I’ll bookmark your blog and visit it weekly for your new posts.
I’ve had vitiligo for a year. I’m finding that the protopic steroid not working. I read that taking n-acetylcholine cysteine and l- glutamine would help my vitiligo but don’t know what strength. I also take B12 twice daily and ginko bilba. I’ve just started and am hopeful. I have brown skin but finding camouflaging my white patches a night mare. Any advice?
Sorry to hear the protopic isn’t working for you, Natalie. I certainly think you are on the right path in considering the supplements you mention. They all play a part in the pigmentation process to some degree or another. L-glutamine has the added benefit of helping with leaky gut if you take it first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I have taken all the supplements you mention at different times but the only ones I can personally recommend without reservation are the ones I refer to on the “Treatment that Worked” page of my site because these are the ones that brought my pigment back, whereas the others, taken separately, didn’t make any noticeable difference. I hope that helps. As regards camouflage, have you tried Coverderm or Dermablend?
Hello,
I have a 5 year old with vitiligo. My wife and I have worked on treating in more ways than I can express in this comment. I am very intrigued by learning about L-Glutamine and L-Phenylalanine but am concerned with appropriate dosages for a 5 year old.
I am not expecting exact numbers but can you help me understand what dosages is appropriate for an adult so I can start somewhere?
Thank you so much!
So sorry for the delayed reply, Adam. I have to admit that your question is rather beyond my expertise and, in any case, dosage of these amino acids is not an exact science.
As far as I know, the main benefit of l-glutamine for the treatment of vitiligo is as a way of healing the leaky gut that is often a contributing factor. As I understand it, the dosage usually recommended for the treatment of leaky gut syndrome is higher than for other uses (like body building). Most authorities seem to agree that – for an adult – a loading dose (of anything up to 40g a day) is necessary at the start, dropping down after that to somewhere in the region of 10g a day.
As for l-phenylalanine, I’m not sure I would recommend this at all. The only time I tried it myself, it gave me the most horrendous headache. Again, I am not an expert in this area, but my understanding of the role of phenylalanine in the production of skin pigment is that it converts into tyrosine. This is why the Boost capsules I took contain tyrosine (and this has never given me any headaches). The daily adult dosage of tyrosine in Boost is 1000mg a day. As this is provided by 4 capsules, it is possible that a child of 5 could take just one capsule a day, which would give him 250mg of tyrosine. I have taken advice from a qualified nutritionist on the suitability of Boost for young children and am told that children as young as 6 could take one capsule of Boost daily.
I hope this helps a little bit – I know it is a very confusing subject. Please feel free to email me if you have any other questions. Good luck!
did L glutamine work?
That’s a hard question to answer, Emily. My perception is that it probably has helped heal my leaky gut. But how much of that healing is due to the l-glutamine, as opposed to the Five a Day greens, is difficult to tell. I still take both every day but I take the glutamine more as an additional “insurance policy” than anything else.
I’m loving all the information I’ve read on vitiligo. I never had a problem with this condition until I had my car accident a year ago, Then all of a sudden it started out small, and grew rapidly. The dermatologist did a skin biopsy and it returned negative. Now, my fingers are totally white and spots on bot hands, and leg. I feel conventional medicine has too many mistakes, and is cut and dry. They don’t rely on gut instinct or visuals anymore. Everything is a lab, and often times by products you use this can give a wrong diagnosis.
Thanks so much for your kind comment about the blog, Cynthia. I’m sorry to hear that you had a car accident and then started to develop vitiligo too – that is literally adding insult to injury 🙁
I am guessing that, like most people with vitiligo, you may always have had a predisposition to pigment loss but it took a trigger to start the process. It may have been the physical trauma of the crash or the psychological one (or both) that provided that trigger. Either way, I do agree with you that conventional medicine is really not geared up for dealing with the complexities of this kind of scenario. Most doctors are quick to dismiss conditions that do not readily show up on standard tests, especially when they are both hard to treat and non life-threatening as vitiligo is.
Just one thought for your though: when you say your test came back negative, did you ever get a definite diagnosis of vitiligo from your dermatologist? If not, there is always a chance that your white spots may be a fungal condition, which would be much easier to cure. It is certainly worth making sure one way or the other. Good luck 🙂